I must admit, I was somewhat of a stalker yesterday....but all in the name of good networking. Most safety consultants believe they are pretty good networkers but there are just as many that believe that networking is just attending an event and handing out business cards. I attended a Human Resources conference yesterday (why you ask? I'll tell you below) and I'll tell you how I "worked" this conference.
First, when I arrived, all attendees were given a list of attendees - awesome! It made my job much easier. The first thing I did was go through the list and mark the people I definitely wanted to meet. The list included about 8 people which is pretty ambitious for a 6 hour conference. The list included the HR person from a pharmaceutical company since that is one of my target markets, the HR person from one of my clients (whom I did not know), the HR people from an industrial supply company, the HR person from a local (but very large) company where my husband had a significant project, an HR consultant I hadn't seen in about 8 years (I actually forgot what she looked like) and a variety of other people. So, what did I do next after I dentified my targets? I made a conscious effort to read names and companies on nametags to try to find these people and strike up a conversation. I was about 50% successful. I have to admit though that I did pretty much "stalk" one guy I had wanted to meet. I finally saw him at lunch but his table was already full so I figured I would try to talk to him after lunch. When he got up to leave, I followed him but only to find out he was headed to the bathroom (where he stayed for some time!) I gave up (temporarily) and moved on. I finally saw him again sitting alone in the auditorium where our next session was to be held. I went and sat two seats from him, hoping he would look up so I could introduce myself but no such luck. He stayed buried in his notes until the speaker started. (Obviously he wasn't a very good networker himself). So, after all of this tracking and stalking, I was unsuccessful in ever meeting him. The good thing about all of this name badge reading was that I did get to also identify other people whom I wanted t'to meet but did not originally identify from the start because they were not on the pre-registered list. I knew from the start that I was not attending this conference to learn about HR, although a few of the sessions were interesting. I was there for focused networking and to me,that's like a game. Yes, I was a stalker but all for a good cause.
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